The present invention relates generally to the field of energy transformation and more particularly, to the use of a container to establish a vortical ring flow pattern to separate a flowing stream of fluid into branches of flow sharing different energy content.
The general field of this invention apparently descends from the findings of James Clark Maxwell (1831-1879), who is historically credited with determining that bodies of fluid which appear to have equal temperature throughout are actually composed of fluid particles having below average temperatures and fluid particles having above average temperatures, a theory that has not been generally accepted and acted upon. It is known that apparatus for centrifuge action dependant upon vortical ring flow patterns have been used in the study of such weather phenomena as typhoons, hurricanes, tornadoes, desert dust devils and the like, but no evidence has been found to suggest that such devices have ever been configured to branch streams of flow of unequal energy content. Various devices under the generic name of Hilsch Tubes are known to develop streams of unequal energy content but they lack to vortical ring flow pattern capabilities that establishes the near adiabatic economy of operation deemed essential to this type of thermal energy separation.
Economy of operation has not, in times past, been worthy of special consideration because of the abundance and cheapness of fossil fuels. In the recent past it was practical to deal only with high density energy forms so little prior art exists in the use of low density energy forms which, for practical reasons, requires that processing acts be performed with near adiabatic efficiency.